Verizon, under fire for throttling firefighters’ data...

1of4(Left to right) Rudy Reyes, vice president and associate general counsel of the western region at Verizon, David Hickey, executive director of business sales and Wes Senechal, vice president - government sales, exit their seats after answering questions by the Assembly Select Committee in Sacramento.Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

3of4Firefighters conduct a controlled burn to defend houses against flames from the Ranch Fire, part of the Mendocino Complex Fire.Photo: MARK RALSTON, AFP/Getty Images

4of4Assemblymembers Monique Limon and Marc Levine address David Hickey of Verizon, during a hearing at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.Photo: Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

SACRAMENTO — Verizon executives came to the Capitol on Friday to get a tongue lashing over the cell phone giant’s throttling of data service for firefighters battling the massive Mendocino Complex fire — but en route they nipped the scolding in the bud by abruptly lifting all data caps on emergency first responders.

The policy went into effect for fire-ravaged California and Hurricane Lane-lashed Hawaii on Thursday, the company said, and a fuller plan for the rest of the nation will be rolled out next week. Public agencies will be able to switch to the new plan at no additional cost.

“It was a little surprising to hear, and the right thing to do,” said Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, who had called for a hearing Friday before the committee he co-chairs to investigate Verizon’s decision to drastically slow data speed. A firefighting agency said that move put their first responders in danger because they were relying on the service to communicate during the fight against the fires.

Levine’s committee went ahead with its session anyway, hearing from Verizon brass as well as leaders of the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, whose data was throttled last month as they were in the thick of helping fight the Mendocino Complex, the biggest wildfire in state history. But with Verizon’s surprise announcement, the conversation switched from how to address the individual problem that the Santa Clara County firefighters faced to how to craft future policy preventing similar trouble for other emergency responders.

“I’ll make it brief — this is about safety, safety, safety,” said Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, D-Winters (Yolo County). “My district has been on fire for three years. ... Our main interest is in making sure this kind of thing never happens again.”

Rudi Reyes, a Verizon vice president, read a statement outlining the new policy, saying the company was “truly sorry ... and we are making an effort to make sure it never happens again.” He declined to comment after the hearing.

What emerged in the nearly two-hour session before the Select Committee on Natural Disaster, Response, Recovery and Rebuilding was a realization that there is no comprehensive policy dictating full service for first-responders, and that when things go bad, as they did for Santa Clara County’s firefighters, there isn’t much else to do but call the customer service representatives any other customer would call, which could lead to frustrating waits.

“After hearing everything we did, my thoughts are now that in January we could introduce legislation to prioritize first responders for unlimited data service with no caps, and to address the fact that there is really nobody to complain to,” Levine said after the session. “There needs to be accountability.”

The issue came to light this week in a court filing made by Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden in an addendum to a federal lawsuit over net neutrality. Bowden said his crews saw their Verizon data flow throttled to 1/200th of its usual speed during the Mendocino battle because they had exceeded a cap on what they thought was a fully unlimited plan. This rendered useless the live video streaming, strategic plan communications and other capabilities of their command vehicle, he told the committee Friday, so his IT managers quickly came up with a workaround using other providers.

The need to do that workaround, however, followed two earlier throttlings by Verizon during his crew’s work on 2017’s Thomas Fire and another blaze in June, and “I found the situation unacceptable,” he said.

Losing the ability to fully communicate during a wildfire puts both firefighters and residents in danger, Bowden said in his court filing. On Friday, he reiterated that concern. “Our ability to connect is critical to being able to provide for the public safety,” he said.

The Santa Clara County fire district now uses both Verizon and AT&T, Bowden said, to ensure steady flow of data.

One source of the trouble, he contended, could be the fact that his agency — like other emergency responders — has to balance cost with need as they deal with limited budgets. Shopping for data plans may not have been necessary decades ago when pre-internet fire communications mostly consisted of dedicated radio transmissions, but now departments have to balance those costs with the existing costs of, say, firefighters salaries.

“We don’t have unlimited funds. We have to select a plan that meets our needs, but one that is not too expensive,” Bowden told the committee.

He and his managers abruptly left the session as the Verizon executives got up to speak. When asked outside the chambers if he felt all the issues had been properly addressed, he said only, “I’m satisfied that I was given the opportunity to come speak.”

Also on Friday, several members of Congress weighed in on the controversy, sending a letter to the Federal Trade Commission demanding an investigation into whether Verizon’s throttling amounted to “unfair or deceptive” practices.

The company had explained earlier in the week that the Santa Clara County firefighters’ data plan was indeed “unlimited,” as firefighters had called it, but that it also had a proviso that when the department reached a certain allotment the data would be slowed down drastically. That had not been adequately explained to the department, managers admitted, and under company policy the throttling was supposed to be canceled in emergency situations — which mistakenly did not happen.

However, the letter to the FTC, signed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and 12 other representatives, didn’t find those explanations to be sufficient.

“It is unacceptable for communications providers to deceive their customers, but when the consumer in question is a government entity tasked with fire and emergency services, we can’t afford to wait a moment longer,” the Congress members wrote. “The FTC must investigate whether Verizon and other communications companies are being unfair or deceptive in the services they’re offering to public safety entities, and if so, to determine what remedies are appropriate to ensure our first responders have adequate service when lives are on the line.

“Unfortunately, with its repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order, the FCC has abdicated its jurisdiction over broadband communications and walked away from protecting consumers, including public safety agencies. We, therefore, call on the FTC to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices stemming from this incident.”

Kevin Fagan is a longtime reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle. He specializes in enterprise news-feature writing and breaking news, taking particular pleasure in ferreting out stories others might not find — from profiling the desperate lives of homeless drug addicts to riding the rails with hobos, finding people who sleep in coffins and detailing the intricacies of hunting down serial killers.

From 2003 to 2006, Kevin was the only beat reporter in the United States covering homelessness full time. He has witnessed seven prison executions and has covered many of the biggest breaking stories of our time, from the Sept. 11 terror attacks at Ground Zero and the Columbine High School massacre to Barack Obama’s election as president, the deadly Mendocino Complex, Wine Country and Ghost Ship fires and the Occupy movement. Homelessness remains a special focus of his, close to his heart as a journalist who cares passionately about the human condition.

He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Jose State University and was raised in California and Nevada.